Making the Choice to View Beheadings

Re “Web Amplifies Message of Primitive Executions,” June 30: No one viewed those images without first finding them, downloading them and then choosing to view them. Call it morbid curiosity or keeping up with current events or proving to yourself the event actually happened. I viewed the footage for a combination of these things and do not regret it. I live in a free nation where these images should be readily available to those mature enough to understand and comprehend them. I do not feel I am spreading the terrorists’ propaganda by forwarding these images any more than I feel the theater owners are spreading Michael Moore’s propaganda by showing his movie.

I think we need more of this to allow some in our country to realize whom we are dealing with. The question of why we are at war is easily answered when viewing this material.

Wayne Altman

Brea

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Perhaps this is George W. Bush country after all (Nick Berg was the second most popular search request on Google in May). Could the multitudes swarming into the Roman Colosseum in the first and second centuries to watch the “contests” have been more -- or less -- bloodthirsty than we are?

Robert R. Silvers

Santa Barbara